By Me.
Hayek once famously remarked that his 'Road To Serfdom' was dedicated to 'socialists of all parties'. His book has long been in fashion for the most notorious reactionary sects and study circles that have had an extreme hatred and hostility towards socialism. It has recieved praise from various groups and individuals, for example, Keynes said that: In my opinion it is a grand book...Morally and philosophically I find myself in agreement with virtually the whole of it: and not only in agreement with it, but in deeply moved agreement" (http://www.reason.com/news/show/33304.html) The book has also been put on the best "100 non-fiction books of the 20th century" by the National Review (http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html)
Hayek's message to 'socialists of all parties' is nothing but a variation of the old lie used by Big Business that capitalism is in some way superior to socialism. The sudden burst of interest by reactionary circles in Hayek and the recycling of his old arguements is due to alleged "good case" against socialism. I do think it has to be said that Hayek's method of presentation is indeed not mainstream and very unusual compared to various other red-baiters and "professional" bourgeois intellectuals. Hayek chooses his audience from the outset and limits his aims. By observing what kind of individual he wishes to address, we come to view his incredibly weak and easily refuted arguements. He does not wish to address the factory worker, the ordinary wage slave, the bored office worker and not even the Communist. He directs his propaganda to the small section of the middle class which is inclined to support socialism and consider socialism the only alternative to the continual imperialist wars and depressions of capitalism. He wants to persuade this section of the middle class that socialism "is not for them" and lead them onto the capitalist path. This book can thus be considered as a piece of transitional propaganda that wants to persuade the more 'radical' section of the middle class to gradually reject socialism and fully embrace capitalism.
Hayek begins by establishing himself as a professional economist and professor. He tries to make an immediate connection with the reader by seeking common grounds of interest. He states that he was a socialist "as a young man". He still has an idealistic outlook with "certain ultimate values". We are astonished by how self-sacrifcing, having painfully carried out his "duty" to speak out despite "every possible reason for not writing or publishing this book".
In the introduction, he wants to further establish emotional connections with the reader. To believe in socialism, allegedly, is not a rare happening. It is only too human. Furthermore, it arises from the best intentions.
"If we take the people whose views influence developments, they are now in the democracies in some measure all socialists. If it is no longer fashionable to emphasize that ‘we are all socialists now,’ this is so merely because the fact is too obvious.”
This "professional" bourgeois intellectual has immersed himself in lies and falsehoods. Socialism is most certainly not a common people belief among people, at least not in the USA, the most powerful stronghold of the capitalist system. Socialism is only, at the moment, being promoted by various international vanguard parties (whether genuine working-class vanguards, or isolated self proclaimed 'vanguards', does not concern us). Contrary to the paranoid rants of Hayek, the people "whose views influence developments" are not "all socialists". This fact, in no way concerns Hayek. He is simply putting forward an emotional appeal for the 'radical' middle class that was fed up and tired over the growth of Stalinism, muddled by its ostensible alikeness to Nazism, despairing over the alleged weakness and impussiance of genuine Marxism and swept away by tidal waves of bourgeois war propaganda. The professor's principal aim, as we shall come to see again and again, is to enter into an emotional resonance with the reader in order convert him or her into an openly hostile enemy of socialism. He then says:
"Is it not possible that if the people whose convictions now give now an irrisistible momentum began to see what only a few yet apprehend, they would recoil in horror and abandon the quest
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3 comments:
The Road to Serfdom is the modern credit based capitalism that has reduced individuals and nations to debt serfdom.
The low wage economy neededs the credit economy and hence the debt overhang that capitalism generates,
The debt overhang should not happen under capitalism according to Hayek which just shows how bankrupt his ideas are.
I realise this is a little late for a comment, but it seems odd for you to criticise this book for being inapplicable to the United States today, as it is explicitly addressed throughout to the British in 1943, who were about to embark on a 35+ year experiment in socialism that was supported by both main political parties.
To go further on what the poster above said. You can't expect a Pro-Socialist blog to praise the incitefulness of a Nobel Prize winning Economist whom has seen, first-hand, the downfalls of central planning.
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